The town was visited by German explorer Heinrich Barth in 1851 who arrived from Tripoli seeking to open trade with Europe and explore Africa,[1] and again in 1892 by the French explorer Parfait-Louis Monteil, who was checking the borders between areas of West Africa assigned to the French and the British.[3] The town was captured and sacked in 1893 by the Sudanese warlord Rabih az-Zubayr, and then by the British in 1902.

Historically the city was much larger than today, with a population estimated by the British at 50,000-60,000 in the late nineteenth-century.

On 16 January 2015, "caretaker chairman of Kukawa Local Government Area, Musa Alhaji Bukar Kukawa", speaking on behalf of the Kukawa residents who were displaced to Maiduguri following the 2015 Baga massacre, "called on the federal government to intensify military operations so that they can return to their homes."[4]